Hey, all. Gabrielle Villarino, former employee of Adventure H2o (where the great Larry Smith worked, until he passed away recently), asked me to post a message for her:

Gabrielle 21 April > I would like to make the following statement:

"I had several reasons to resign AdvH2o on Friday, 13 April 2007, mainly them being due to lack of communication, morals & values missing from Management in those weeks after the mournful death of Larry.

Being a very loyal employee, I try to always give my best for everybody involved - clients & employer, that's just my nature! .... . but when it comes to bad KARMA, then I have to stick with my convictions.

After Larry's sad & sudden death, all was left to me to handle and/or to decide ( i.e. answering all mails & condolences, statements, the website changes with Hendry, tributes, coordination). I am not complaining about taking care of the aftermath of Larry's passing, I feel honored to have been a part of it.

But the lack of empathy from the H2o Management to the whole situation left me deeply troubled. I will not go into details.

Widya, as Office Manager took care of matters in Bali as good as she could.

I had a gut feeling the whole time, but hope kept me going.

On 13 April I confirmed an additional booking for the 27 APR trip and sent a message with this "great news".Mr. Jacobs only replied, "not good news, this trip is cancelled", which had clients of mine & DD.

Finding out on 13 April, that this trip was cancelled and I was not even told the reason WHY or what's going on, led me to an immediate resignation, within minutes. I wanted to distance myself from these kind of business practices. Second mail I received from SJ, was firing me due to "lack of performance" ....!!

I also could not identify with, how Larry's widow and his US family have been treated the past weeks .. . or should I say, " NOT being treated" ?

The last few days I have been receiving mails from other AKguests & agents, telling me about their bookings being cancelled as well, due to "major engine problems".I also have received plenteous encouraging mails regarding my decision and integrity.

All AK & AdvH2o business concerns should be addressed directly to the owner and proprietor Mr. Jacobs."

I tried to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but he has flat out lied over and over again.

From the horse's mouth, the business is done. He has sold the boat. It's on its way back to Australia. At least, that is what he says. One cannot trust anything he says.

I'm setting up a website for those who were cheated and lied to by this fine specimen of an ethical business man.

I'll post a link as soon as it is operational.

edit:

BTW, look at the time line. He takes more bookings for the April 27 trip on or about April 13, which I believe included full payment and then cancels the trip and keeps the money. Awesome! Pure profit!

Thats it...as a director of a company, you just take the money out of the business as it comes in and not pay any of your creditors or staff but spin them stories to keep this going as long as you can.

Then they sell as much of the assets as they can and keep the cash.

The business then ceases trading or are forced into liquidation by the bank or a creditor and by the time it goes to court there is no mony left and most of the assets have been sold off...the directors of the company took it all and they cannot be touched....

Then later on the directors go off and set up another business and away they go again....

There is a registered user on here whom goes by Okuma.. i'm sure i saw a signature on his profile that stated he was a US agent for AdventureH20. Im not sure bt it might be worth a shot.

Some of the information above was provided by Allan Jones (Okuma).

Thats it...as a director of a company, you just take the money out of the business as it comes in and not pay any of your creditors or staff but spin them stories to keep this going as long as you can.

Then they sell as much of the assets as they can and keep the cash.

The business then ceases trading or are forced into liquidation by the bank or a creditor and by the time it goes to court there is no mony left and most of the assets have been sold off...the directors of the company took it all and they cannot be touched.... wink.gif

Then later on the directors go off and set up another business and away they go again.... smile.gif

Could this be whats happening???

I doubt the last line. I've ridden a company into the sunset. There's a right way and a wrong way to do it. There are some financially minor events that really show this guy's character. It'll come out later.

It's like the dive shop where I teach. When the original owner sold it, he owed me $180 in pay. He came up with some lame rationale why he didn't owe it to me. I have held a grudge against this guy ever since. It's not like $180 would break either one of us. He just enjoyed screwing people. The new owners said they would make it up to me over time and they have. The former owner has a new career in law enforcement.

Yes, I'm here and will be probably signing onto Scorpio's list of "Screwees". For the past year or so, my wife and I have been doing trade shows and presentations at local clubs as an independent contrator.
In liue of compensation, we were provided with diving day credits on the boat. At the time of the sale we had 29 days of credit ($9,700) due us.

When the cancellations were on going, we were at Sea Space telling Scorpio what a good operation it was. I found out about the collapse later via the internet and have yet had had the courtesy of a call from the owner!

Hey Pete,
Hold onto your grapes mate;
It's raining here down south, and they just might get the drink that they need.
Maybe next years crop will be a nice 'dry' vintage with just a hint of 'moist clay'..?

Sorry to hear it's all gone pear shaped. Hope the trip insurance covers this.
Reminds me of this group of people travelling with Howard Latin. They got burned at the last minute when the boat they booked on was never booked and the agent disappeared.
We should contact insurance companies on providing varies policies on travel protection at difference price points.

Drew
Moderator
"Journalism is what someone else does not want printed, everything else is public relations."

"I was born not knowing, and have only had a little time to change that here and there.

That's good to hear they have begun to make reparations for the cancelled trips. It would be a pity if the company's behavior taints the legacy of Larry Smith and of the dive industry in Indonesia in general.

Drew
Moderator
"Journalism is what someone else does not want printed, everything else is public relations."

"I was born not knowing, and have only had a little time to change that here and there.

Great new Robin. Thanks for the update. Hopefully everyone involved will get their money back. I suspect the problem was probably the sale of the boat and the money transfer was longer than usual for the company.

Drew
Moderator
"Journalism is what someone else does not want printed, everything else is public relations."

"I was born not knowing, and have only had a little time to change that here and there.

Great new Robin. Thanks for the update. Hopefully everyone involved will get their money back. I suspect the problem was probably the sale of the boat and the money transfer was longer than usual for the company.

From my emails I believe that to be the situation. That said, an email or written communication would have gone a long way to ease our concerns. I know of at least 7 others who have also gotten refunds. The checks are coming from Australia, so depending upon where you live, might take longer. Perhaps if booked via a travel agent, the refund went there... folks might need to check with their agents.Robin

A quick update from the Wetpixel admin side: I've heard from two people who have still not been refunded.

Eric,

That would be two out of how many total? From another group of folks, there are at least 11 of 16 with full refunds so far. So sounds like the refunds are trickling in even though some are taking a bit longer than others....